5 Steps to run a Classic ASP page on Windows Azure

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My colleague Rishi Agrawal was trying this out today and asked me to assist. Not remembering that ASP (without .NET suffix) is better known as "Classic ASP" I didn't recollect the good advice from Steve Marx on Cloud Cover Episode 31 (see 15 mins in)

Fortunately Rishi found this and quickly got his sample solution working in 5 steps:

  1. Create a simple asp page in notepad (e.g. using https://support.microsoft.com/kb/301097)
  2. Create startup.cmd to install ASP engine
    • start /w pkgmgr /iu:IIS-AS
  3. Create a ASP .Net Web role and modify csdef to include a startup task:
    • <Startup>
    • <Task commandLine="startup.cmd" executionContext="elevated" taskType="simple" />
    • </Startup>
  4. Add both files to web role - change properties to 'Content' and 'Copy if New'.
  5. Build and Publish solution to Azure

If you want to try Classic ASP in Windows Azure, you can download a full working Visual Studio solution here.

 

What else did I find looking for Classic ASP and Azure:

Much like Enabling Classic ASP, as its is not installed by default on IIS7,  there are other guides for Windows Azure (How-to enable classic ASP support).

There are also some tools out there for alternative approaches such as the ASP Classic Compiler which compiles classic asp pages into .net binaries. Or of course you could use the ASP to ASP.NET Migration Assistant

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